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Father's Day
I've been spending day and night (when I'm not at work), creating new brochures, flyers and business cards for my business, and getting them onto my website. It's exciting for me, and a lot of fun. I had been using microsoft word templates, but found them very limiting (not to mention frustrating!). I tried some other programs, and finally decided to find out what I could do, using photoshop cs. I'm so pleased with my results using photoshop! I can do all kinds of things. With the other programs my results had been run of the mill. Just your everyday, basic layout with a picture and maybe a frame.... With photoshop it's much much better! I can get so much more creative. This new, more creative style takes a lot of time however, so it's slow going. That's okay though, slow is the way I like to work on my art.
So tomorrow is Father's Day. My father passed away four years ago. I never knew him when he was alive, though we lived in the same house. My memories of him are traumatic, and I know for certain that he never loved me.
A couple of weeks before he died, my father phoned me from his deathbed. I was still with x, living on Vancouver Island, while my family lived here in the city where I'm living now. In the months before my father's call, I'd received calls from several of my sisters and brother in law's, asking me to come and see my dad before he died. I refused them all. Finally one evening my father called. His voice was so soft I could hardly hear him. My fingers turned to claws and dug into my thigh when I realised who it was. I wanted to shout at him "How could you?!" for all the ways I recall him hurting me, but how does one do such a thing to a dying man? He asked me to come to see him. I told him no.
I have so many regrets concerning my father - Regret that he never loved me. Regret that he did the things he did. Regret that we never connected in any way. Regret that we never mended the fences. I don't know if he ever considered asking my forgiveness, but if he had, I would have forgiven him without hesitation. I don't mean I would have absolved him, or forgotten what went on - I mean I would have allowed us another chance, as I am doing now with my mother. I would have moved past the hurt, and together my father and I might have created a new story for us to look back on. But it didn't happen that way.
I went to his funeral. My father was unrecogniseable in the coffin. I touched his hand and cheek. I slipped a poem I'd written, into his breast pocket. As I did, I sensed that his body was hollow and echoing. I'd placed the poem over his heart, but the heart was no longer there, as it never had been for me when he was alive. I cried many tears, and I'm sure my relatives seated in the room watching me, believed I was crying out of guilt. I don't think one of them knows the true story of my father and me, and if they do, I'm sure they don't believe it. The common view that day, was that I was a black sheep returned home too late - my father was dead and I was weeping bitter tears of regret.
No one knew that I was not mourning the passing of my father. I cried because my father died years ago as a small child in Russia, when Communism came to his country and the horrible persecution of German Mennonites began. The small boy who began his life as a pampered youngest son to wealthy Mennonite silk farmers, lost his life at the age of five, to cruelties beyond imagining. Though he didn't physically die as his family eventually did, starved and frozen to death in concentration camps, something in him ceased to live. This is what happened to turn my father into the man I knew - the father who wounded me so badly.
I had hoped he might have left me a letter. Some gesture to show he wasn't completely oblivious to my feelings, but there was nothing.
Below is a small excerpt from a short story I wrote about my father's deathbed phonecall.
He asked me, strangely, if I had any questions. I wanted to ask "Why?" and "How could you?" Instead I said "Yes. I have questions but I don't want to ask them." My father consented to take the answers I have waited a lifetime to hear, to his grave. I wanted to punch myself for being so weak. My father told me goodbye and I raised my voice to call "Goodbye!" because I sensed him drifting away. I knew it would be my last word to him and I wanted him to hear me.
So tomorrow is Father's Day. My father passed away four years ago. I never knew him when he was alive, though we lived in the same house. My memories of him are traumatic, and I know for certain that he never loved me.
A couple of weeks before he died, my father phoned me from his deathbed. I was still with x, living on Vancouver Island, while my family lived here in the city where I'm living now. In the months before my father's call, I'd received calls from several of my sisters and brother in law's, asking me to come and see my dad before he died. I refused them all. Finally one evening my father called. His voice was so soft I could hardly hear him. My fingers turned to claws and dug into my thigh when I realised who it was. I wanted to shout at him "How could you?!" for all the ways I recall him hurting me, but how does one do such a thing to a dying man? He asked me to come to see him. I told him no.
I have so many regrets concerning my father - Regret that he never loved me. Regret that he did the things he did. Regret that we never connected in any way. Regret that we never mended the fences. I don't know if he ever considered asking my forgiveness, but if he had, I would have forgiven him without hesitation. I don't mean I would have absolved him, or forgotten what went on - I mean I would have allowed us another chance, as I am doing now with my mother. I would have moved past the hurt, and together my father and I might have created a new story for us to look back on. But it didn't happen that way.
I went to his funeral. My father was unrecogniseable in the coffin. I touched his hand and cheek. I slipped a poem I'd written, into his breast pocket. As I did, I sensed that his body was hollow and echoing. I'd placed the poem over his heart, but the heart was no longer there, as it never had been for me when he was alive. I cried many tears, and I'm sure my relatives seated in the room watching me, believed I was crying out of guilt. I don't think one of them knows the true story of my father and me, and if they do, I'm sure they don't believe it. The common view that day, was that I was a black sheep returned home too late - my father was dead and I was weeping bitter tears of regret.
No one knew that I was not mourning the passing of my father. I cried because my father died years ago as a small child in Russia, when Communism came to his country and the horrible persecution of German Mennonites began. The small boy who began his life as a pampered youngest son to wealthy Mennonite silk farmers, lost his life at the age of five, to cruelties beyond imagining. Though he didn't physically die as his family eventually did, starved and frozen to death in concentration camps, something in him ceased to live. This is what happened to turn my father into the man I knew - the father who wounded me so badly.
I had hoped he might have left me a letter. Some gesture to show he wasn't completely oblivious to my feelings, but there was nothing.
Below is a small excerpt from a short story I wrote about my father's deathbed phonecall.
He asked me, strangely, if I had any questions. I wanted to ask "Why?" and "How could you?" Instead I said "Yes. I have questions but I don't want to ask them." My father consented to take the answers I have waited a lifetime to hear, to his grave. I wanted to punch myself for being so weak. My father told me goodbye and I raised my voice to call "Goodbye!" because I sensed him drifting away. I knew it would be my last word to him and I wanted him to hear me.
posted by Marian (Jolene) | 12:21 a.m.
1 Comments:
Marian,
I understand. I had a similar problem with my mother. The ones we don't get along with on earth, are the ones we grieve for the most.
It is not too late to make amends and forgive. It can be done after death. I did so with my mother.
As a child I had a very good mother. She took care of me, fed and clothed me. I was the only girl and youngest child of four children. She never left me alone with the boys or men. She protected me and watched over me. I was never molested in any way.
After I was married she changed and I guess I did too. She was very jealous all her life of other members of the family. She never learned to give love or to receive love. After I was married we argued almost constantly. I thought that I did not love my mother and tried harder. Then decided that my mother did not love me. I think she did. And I really did love her but she would do small things that made me angry. So our love turned to hate both ways.
Then many years after she died I discovered a way to forgive her and for her to forgive me.
I was working on my genealogy and came across a small 10 cent notebook that would fit into a man's shirt pocket. She had kept a record in pencil of items she purchased. Through her records I saw a different woman than the one I had known.
I saw a young woman, attractive but not pretty. Well groomed, neat and respectably dressed. A woman traveling on a train alone with three babies in the early 20th century. She had a small amount of yardage with her. Enough to make the youngest baby a set of rompers, and a couple other small items. She made these by hand as she traveled. She was hungry so she bought herself a cup of tea and a small bag of candy. She had very little money and so she sacrificed herself for her children.
Then I was sorry I had been unkind to her. I said prayers and talked to her spirit as though she were still on earth with me. I told her I loved her and thanked her for all the nice things she did for me. I told her I was sorry that I had been unkind to her in retaliation. I asked her to forgive me. We made our peace through prayers and after death.
I learned that we love those close to us. We may not like what they do or say but we still love them. I think about the mother and father and sisters and brothers who wait outside the jailhouse as their loved one inside waits for the executioner. The family still love the convict. They just don't like what he did. But they cannot help him now as they wait.
We don't always know what makes our loved one act the way they do. Every one's life is different. Even among siblings. We don't know what caused them to be the way they are.
Your father called to say goodbye. He asked for you to come and see him. It was his way of saying I am sorry. Please forgive me. You can say the same back to him now. You can make a beautiful card and then send it to him through the ethers by burning it as the Chinese do. You can write a letter to him and put it in the Bible and later you can burn it and send it to him in the smoke. In your heart you can say you love him and you are sorry that the both of you did not get along. Perhaps your mother can tell you more about him and why he treated you the way he did. Ask her. It will bring you both together more. Now is a time for healing.
I send you my love to help you with your healing.
Lyd
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